AFUA COOPER, Ph.D.

Email: afua.cooper@sympatico.ca

University of Toronto
Ph.D., History
Dissertation: “Doing Battle in Freedom’s Cause,”: Henry Bibb, Abolitionism, Race Uplift, and Black Manhood, 1842-1854.”
Fields: Canada, United States, Caribbean, Africa

TEACHING and RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2004-2006 Asst. Professor: History Dept., University of Toronto
2002-2003 Lecturer: UNI304H: Beyond Multiculturalism in Canada,”
University College, University of Toronto.
2001-2004 Lecturer: CRB 500: “Families in the Caribbean,”
Sociology Dept., Ryerson University.
2001-2002 Course Director: HIST. 2220. “The History of Women in Canada.”
York University (Atkinson College).
1999-2004 Historian/Consultant: Parks Canada
Researched 19th-Century African Canadian history, and the Underground Railroad for Federal Govt., advised said
govt., on proposed Black history exhibit. The exhibit, The Underground Railroad, Next Stop: Freedom, is now installed
At the Black Creek Pioneer Museum, Toronto.
1999-2000 Instructor: New 362H: “African Canadian Women’s History”
New Coll., University of Toronto
Summer 1998 Instructor: His. 294Y: “Caribbean History and Culture to 1900"
History Dept., University of Toronto
(Fully responsible for all aspects of course).
1994-99 Instructor: SCS5511-01A: “Four Centuries of African Canadian History”
School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto
1996-97 Teaching Asst: His. 261Y: “Introduction to Canadian History”
History Dept., University of Toronto.
1994-95 Teaching Asst: His. 295Y: “History of Sub-Saharan Africa to 1900"
History Dept., University of Toronto.


EXHIBITS CURATED
Feb. 2002-Sept. 2002: A Glimpse of Black Life in Victorian Toronto: 1850-1860, Museum Division, City of Toronto.

April 2002-Feb. 2003: The Underground Railroad, Next Stop: Freedom! Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. 2003-present, Black Creek Pioneer Museum


ACADEMIC and RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2006)

The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto! (Toronto: Natural Heritage Publisher, November, (2002)

“Constructing Black Women’s Historical Knowledge,” Atlantis, A Women’s Studies Journal 25, 1 (Fall 2000) 39-50.

“The Fluid Frontier: Blacks and the Detroit River Region, 1789-1854, A Focus on Henry Bibb” Canadian Review of American Studies 30, 2 (Winter 2000) 129-149.

“Putting Flesh on Bone: Writing the History of Julia Turner,” in Ontario Since Confederation, ed. Edgar-Andre Montigny, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000) 16-39.

Utterances and Incantations: Women, Poetry, and Dub, (Toronto: SisterVision Press,1999).

“Out of a Cardboard Box Beside Our Bed like a Baby”: The Founders of Sister Vision Press,” in Great Dames, eds. Elspeth Cameron & Janice Dickin, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) 291-306.

“The Search for Mary Bibb, Black Woman Teacher in Nineteenth-Century Canada West,” Ontario History, 83 (March 1991) 39-54. Reprinted in “We Specialize in the
Wholly Impossible,” A Reader in Black Women’s History, ed. Darlene Clark Hine, New
York: Carlson Publishing, 1995) 171-185.

“We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up,”: Essays in African
Canadian Women’s History, (Reprint, 1999; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994).

“Integrating Black History Within the Canadian Education System, With an Emphasis on Post-Education Studies,” Wahenga, The Queen’s University Black History Journal (Spring 1994) 20-27.

Book Review. Afua P. Cooper, “In Search of Foremothers: Herstory or the Perpetuation of Myths,” Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century - Jane Rhodes. Atlantis 24, 2 (Spring 2000) 160-161.

Forthcoming
“ A New Biography of the African Diaspora: The Odyssey of marie-Joseph Angelique, Black Portuguese Slave Woman in new France, 1725-1734,” in Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Global Conversations: New Scholarship on the History of Black Peoples (University of Illinois Press, 2006).


CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“ Henry Bibb and the Underground Railroad,” Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Buffalo, Oct. 2005.

“Commemorating 400 Years of African Canadian History,” Multiple Lenses: Voices from the Diaspora, Halifax, Oct. 2005

“Speaking Forth: Political Action and Antislavery Thought in Toronto’s Antebellum Community,” Canadian Historical Association, University of Toronto, May 2002.

“Atlantic Odyssey: Marie Joseph Angelique, Black Portuguese Slave Woman in New France, 1725-1734,” Canadian Historical Association, Laval University, May 2001.

“A Reinterpretation of the Life and Activism of a Henry Bibb, a Cross-Border Abolitionist,” American Studies Association, Detroit, October 2000.

“Begging in Canada, and Ruined Reputations: Canadian Black Abolitionists,” Organization of American Historians, Toronto, April 1999.

“ Race, Gender, and Respectability in 19th-Century Ontario,” International Congress of Historical Sciences, Montreal, August 1995.

“African Oral Traditions and Caribbean Dub Poetry,” African Roots of Caribbean Culture, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida, April 1995.

Proposed and organized panel on African Canadians in North American history for the
Organization of American Historians’ Annual Conference, Toronto, April 1999.


PAPERS WRITTEN FOR FEDERAL MINISTRY OF HERITAGE

“The Slave as a Murderer; The John Anderson Extradition Case: A transnational Controversy.”

“Political Activism in Toronto at Mid-Century: The North American Convention of Free People of Colour, Toronto, 1851.”


TEACHING COMPETENCIES and RESEARCH INTERESTS

Canadian history, New France, African Diaspora, Atlantic history, women’s history, African American history, comparative slavery, abolition, and emancipation, the slave narrative, world history, gender studies, African history, Antebellum history, Caribbean and Latin American history, sociology, and culture, British Empire and Commonwealth history, historiography, migration history.

GUEST LECTURER

Black History Month Keynote. St. Francis Xavier University, Feb. 2005. “Canadian History from Mathieu Da Costa to Present Time.”

Women’s Studies Program, University of Toronto. November 2002, “An Efficient Womanhood: Mary Miles Bibb, Pioneer Educator, Abolitionist, and Publisher.”

Institute for Women and Gender Studies, Summer Institute, University of Toronto. July 2002, “Feminist Pedagogy in Canadian Women’s Studies.” A Joint Initiative between the People’s Republic of China and the University of Toronto.”

Keynote Address, Kentucky State University/City of Louisville Commemoration of the Underground Railroad from Kentucky to Canada, April 2002, “Henry Bibb: Kentucky Fugitive, North American Abolitionist.”

International Women’s Day Address, New College, University of Toronto, March 2002, “History, Blood and Memory: Woman as Word Explorer.”

Keynote Address, Ontario Women’s History Network. Sept., 2001, “Paradigms of Power: Black Women and the Practice of History in Canada.”

Dept., of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario
Feb. 1999, “Story of Love, Story of Sorrow: Henry and Malinda Bibb in the Underworld of Slavery.”

Monarch Park High School Lecture, Toronto, Feb. 1999, “Re-Imagining the Nation: New Perspectives in Canadian History.”

Living and Learning Lecture Series, Feb. 1997, “Education of African Canadians in
the 19th century.”

University of Windsor, Ontario, Women’s Studies Department, Feb. 1997, “Julia Turner: A Life in Teaching, 1847-1901.”

Early Canada Lunchtime Lecture Series, School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto, Spring 1995, “From the Loyalists to the Caribbean migrants: the Black Contribution in Canada.”


SCHOLARSHIPS and AWARDS

Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence, 2005
University of Toronto Black Alumni Academic Leadership Award, 2004
Commonwealth of Kentucky Award for Contribution to Kentucky history, April 2002
Canada Council Research Grant, 2001
John Nicholas Brown Center Fellowship, Brown University, 2001
University of Toronto Exceptional Student Award, 1998-99
Margaret S. McCullough Graduate Scholarship, University of Toronto, 1997-98
Joseph Brant Book Prize for best book in Ontario History, 1997
Marta Danylewycz Award for Historical Research, 1995


MEMBERSHIP

Canadian Historical Association
Writers’ Union of Canada
League of Canadian Poets